Turning Fellow Entrepreneurs Into Customers Six tips to help you sell from one small business to another

If you've ever tried to sell your product or service toanother entrepreneur, you know how puzzling the process can be attimes. Yes, you may have the greatest "whatever" sincesliced bananas, but you may not be able to sway that self-made,hard-driving individual who's sitting across the desk from you.Worse yet, he or she may show initial signs of interest but forsome reason (unknown to you) neglect to return your calls.

How do you successfully navigate your way into anentrepreneur's heart and pocketbook and win the sale? Try thesetactics:

1. At all costs, appeal to their ego without challengingit. Generally speaking, an entrepreneur's ego is prettybig. It's also pretty fragile. Whenever you approach a fellowentrepreneur, be careful not to step across that fine line ofbravado.

Don't use words and phrases the other person will not easilyunderstand and connect with. At a bare minimum, this will make yourprospect feel uninformed and, in extreme cases, downright stupid.Not good! Instead, focus on the outcome or result you can deliver.As a general rule, never mention your product's name, numbersor insider buzzwords.

2. Pitch the value you can provide. Contrary to popularbelief, price is not the determining element of the sale-value is.So don't say you'll lower your price. Lowering your priceonly lowers the perceived value, and that's not a goodidea.

Instead, add value to justify your price. Adding or extendingservices, such as free delivery, or providing risk-reversingguarantees, work the best.

Don't respond to a comment like "Your price is toohigh" with "I can lower it by 10 percent." Instead,say something like "Exactly how high do you feel my priceis?" or ask "Why do you think my price is toohigh?"

3. Give them the ability to concentrate on their corecompetency. For the most part, we become entrepreneurs topursue our dreams. Many of us don't enjoy performing tasks-suchas accounting, payroll, advertising, sales, marketing and soon-that take us away from our pleasure.

So if you sell a service, don't make any negative commentsabout this entrepreneur's current service, such as "Thereseem to be gross inaccuracies and out-of-date information on yourWeb site" or "Our evaluation is that your files aredisorganized. Who's been doing your filing?" It'squite possible that your prospect's daughter or son may haveperformed the work in question. Ouch!

It's better to focus on the entrepreneur's desire tospend more time on tasks that are at the core of why he started hisbusiness in the first place. Try this: "By taking what'salready been done and enhancing it to your liking, you'll beable to spend more time creating your next product. We'll takecare of all the details of your filing system so you can get yourhands on what you're looking for quickly."

4. Show them a way to grow their business. No matter whatyou sell, if you can position it in such a way that your prospectcan see how it can help him grow his business, he'll invest init quickly.

Make an effort to really understand how your existing customersbenefit from your product or service. Generally speaking, nearlyeverything can impact either the revenue-generating orexpense-cutting areas of the business. Know how you can do this,and then underpromise and overdeliver. That's good selling!

5. Never forget them. After the sale, stay in touch.Create a contact strategy and stick with it. Don't sayyou'll do something and then blow it off. Do follow up andfollow through. Send each of your existing customers something ofvalue every other month.

6. Think lifetime value. When you make a sale to anentrepreneur, you're not closing anything but rather opening arelationship that, when taken care of, will last a lifetime.

Always include an automatic renewal with your writtenagreements. And figure out what other services you can sell thiscustomer. When it comes time to perform any pre-sales activity,justify spending that time and those resources based on the returnyou'll get.